McDonald's Playplace
Introduced in 1972, these branded playgrounds were part of the McDonald's experience that included the iconic Happy Meal. New locations are often built without a playground.
The Sony Walkman cassette player
The original portable music player, the Sony Walkman, was popular during the 1980s. The first model was met with "lackluster sales" of 3,000 units in its first month of release in 1979. Clever marketing on the streets of Tokyo saved the personal cassette player, and sales soared the very next month. Sony stopped producing new Walkmans in 2010 after a successful 30-year run.
Choosing a movie at Blockbuster
Blockbuster Video was once one of America's most popular video rental stores. Walking the aisles searching for just the right title often took more time and effort than tapping away on a keyboard does today. All but one location in the U.S. is closed.
Toys "R" Us
Toys "R" Us was quite popular during the early 1980s and was worth $12 billion by 1990. The superstore filed for bankruptcy in 2017. Toys "R" Us closed for good in June 2018 after 70 years in the toy business.
Mall arcades
Atari released "Pong" in 1972, thereby creating one of the first commercially successful video games. "Pac-Man" would later become the most successful coin-operated arcade game of all time. Console gaming grew alongside the arcade business following "Atari," but the market eventually shifted away from arcade gaming. Los Angeles’s last mall arcade shuttered in 2016.
Showbiz Pizza
Founded in 1980, Showbiz Pizza featured an animatronic stage show along with a selection of arcade style games in a family-friendly restaurant concept. Showbiz Pizza was the best-performing knock-off of another animatronic pizza chain called Pizza Time. In 1985, Showbiz Pizza Place and Pizza Time completed a merger to become Chuck E. Cheese.
Gameboy
The iconic Nintendo Gameboy was released in 1989. The small monochrome screen and modest onboard power didn’t stop this predecessor of the Nintendo 3Ds from outselling its better equipped competitors. The original Gameboy was discontinued in the early 2000s.
"Oregon Trail" for Apple II
The 1985 Apple II version of "Oregon Trail" is considered the original by many who have played it. But thetrue original version of the game was released in 1971 for Teletype machines. Production of the popular video game ended years ago, but the gameplay lives on in a new tabletop card game and online at the Internet Archive.